


Nuclear Winter Snowflakes (Temporarily Cancelled)

by HereInTheLaterNow



Series: Hm, That's Not Right [1]
Category: My Time At Portia (Video Game)
Genre: Age of Darkness, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, Developing Friendships, Dialogue Light, Ethea, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fallout, Fluff and Angst, My time at portia, Non-Chronological, Non-Linear Narrative, Nuclear Fallout, Nuclear Winter, POV Alternating, Saving the World, Short, Short Chapters, inventions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:55:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21874882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HereInTheLaterNow/pseuds/HereInTheLaterNow
Summary: While she's ruin hunting she finds the last thing she'd think to ever find, another person.
Relationships: J. Peach/Female Builder (My Time At Portia)
Series: Hm, That's Not Right [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620085
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. 1

Amid a weak snowstorm, past the thickets of the nonphotosynthetic plants that fed on death, through the wide desecration of what people referred to as the Peripheries, a single figure treaded through the snow, wrapped head to toe in long clothing to protect from UV rays, a long stick in one of her hands and a large thermos in the other hand. A pump-action shotgun was strapped to her hip. The lenses on her beaten-up gas mask were dark. She knew she was provoking death. She was never safe even if she was in an area that would be foolish for anyone to attempt to live in.

Everything was almost set. Her base was almost empty, she heaved the generator into the trunk. All the nonperishable food and water were stuffed into the trunk and gasoline containers took up the entire backseats. On the floor under the backseats were clothes, a couple of boxes of Vitamin D tablets with questionable expiration dates, an old coffee maker, and random trinkets from before the Third World War. The first-aid kit was on the dashboard, the middle compartment and glove compartment was full of bullets, underneath the passenger seat was a windup flashlight and a flare gun, and on top of the passenger seat was a box of all her stuff. 

The last thing she needed was a spark plug, and she knew an abandoned auto parts retailer was less than three miles from her. She took a sip of unsugared coffee from the thermos, she had long since gotten used to the bitter taste. She closed up, everything locked up airtight. She lowered the garage door with her gloved hands and set out northwest of the base. She had yet to see a monster, emphasis on yet. The snow crunched under her boots, she could hear her labored breaths, she could hear almost everything. She longed for the days her parents were alive, they were always so talkative. Once her car started and she set out she might catch a radio signal, hopefully, they'll play music instead of reminding her of the hellish world she lived in.

She looked at the abandoned houses in the neighborhood she raided. A ghost of what it previously was. A ruin was downtown, towards the more industrial part of the ghost town. She had dug through the rocks and the rubble and only found a few things of significance. It did lead her to a gas station though, most of the perishable food still intact because of the freezing temperature but she wasn't desperate enough for food to test it. After two hours of trying her damndest to siphon the purified fossil fuel out of the pump, she had loads of canisters filled to the brim with gasoline. Compared to most people, she was living the high life.

She was right. It wasn't too far. The houses of the neighborhood she raided had doors that blew open and closed in the wind. She broke the window of the place. It was relatively empty. Sparkplugs. She was looking for sparkplugs. She grabbed a frozen basket and grabbed anything she could carry before getting the plugs, she grabbed all of them. She was relieved, almost happy.

She prepared to leave the place when she heard the crunch of a footstep. Her smile left her face immediately and she went for her gun. _Oh God, Oh God, Oh Fuck!_ her thoughts ran a mile a minute. She was stupid for letting her guard down.

It emerged, hands up in surrender, she raised her gun to its face. "Who the fuck are you?" The question came out muffled.

"I'm an inventor," it said. It slowly raised a hand to its face and pulled off its mask. It was a man in goggles. Had he been watching her? She didn't lower her gun.

"The air here's clean," he said.

"Can't take that risk," she said.

"I just want one of those sparkplugs," he motioned his hand to her basket and she tensed, her finger brushed the trigger.

"Why should I give it to you?"

He smiled, she could see the kindness in his smile. This man was a fool, a scrawny, weaponless, kind of cute fool. "Please."

She pulled out one and tossed it to him. "Here." She finally lowered her gun. She noticed the back door was open. He must've heard her break the windows and watched her loot the store. If he was going to try something why didn't he do it? She should've heard him, her senses were good. She was stupid for letting her guard down.

She gave him one last once over and turned to leave. She could hear him scurry up behind her, his mask was still off because she could hear his mouth breathe clearly. "Why are you following me?" Her fingertips brushed the gun, she gave him a look of warning.

"I haven't seen another person in a year, pardon my lack of charm, but I was wondering why are you out here?"

"And I should tell you why?" She stopped and looked at him. He gave her a shy smile back. He was an awkward man, she could almost feel embarrassed for him.

"I saw you were trying to fix your car. A sparkplug won't completely fix it. Let me help you."

"You were watching me?" She sounded apprehensive and disgusted. Her hand's grip tightened on the gun.

"I know, but, my own car broke and well."

"What you would have done if I wasn't here?" She couldn't help but ask.

"Die," he said gravely.

She turned to walk away.

"Please, I can help you! I'm trying to get to Ethea. If you bring me there I will pay you," he pulled out a large purse from his bag full of money.

"What's stopping me from killing you and taking the money?"

He gave her a look of desperation, his hands still out as a sign of trust.

"Please."

She rolled her eyes in annoyance.


	2. 2

The ride was quiet. She could see him fiddle with the radio knobs, trying to catch a frequency. His eyes darted over to her ever so often. So far he was only a mild annoyance. More help than a hindrance. She couldn't lie to herself and say she didn't miss the feeling of human contact in any form. 

"What's your name?" He quietly asked. She pretended to ignore him, her eyes on the wide road. The dead fields blurred past her eyes. She could see him retreat in her peripheral. His face was a warm pink as he looked away. 

"Lathan Clara," she said with her eyes on the road. 

He turned back at her with a curious expression. "Peach. James Peach."

She turned to look back at him and with the most personality she's seen from him, he gave her a wink. She turned back with a hesitant smile on her lips. He was more help than a hindrance.


	3. 3

She needed to leave that place immediately. She was so tired of the cold. 

He worked diligently, with smart, confident fingers. He was fast. She sat in the cold living room but she could hear him work away. Maybe he was an inventor. She stood up to prepare some canned ham. She sparked a fire to life in the sink of the kitchen. The previous owner had some salt left in their cabinets. Good enough. She pulled off her mask after so long of wearing it and blinked.

She walked upon him while he was deep in work. She tapped his shoulder and he jumped. He turned around and looked her in the eyes. She impatiently motioned the food towards him. He took it and watched her with curious eyes. 

"Can I...," he cleared his throat when her eyes met his. "Can I see what you found? Artifacts? Discs? Relics?"

She motioned towards a box. "Yeah, but I'm watching you."

He pulled himself away from the hood of the truck and walked over to the backseat. "I never thought I'd meet a relic hunter this far away from Ethea," he laughed dryly. 

"The only difference from this place to Ethea is the lack of assholes," she lazily poked at her food. 

"Assholes, hm? Assholes like me?" He said as he pulled out a slightly scuffed up disc. 

She nodded with the ghost of a smile at her lips. She watched him study her gatherings with calculating eyes and probing fingers.


	4. 4

James had looked down at her with a distressed look as she dug through the mass of snow near the shelter, gloveless, maskless, teary-eyed. The wind whipped both of their faces and made his lips chapped. What could he do at that moment? She had never wanted to show her emotions to him, and now that her vulnerabilities were on full display he had no experience prior with comforting her. 

"Lathan," he said loud enough to be heard over the whistling blast of air assaulting his senses, his hand on her shoulder. 

Of course, as he expected, she ignored him and continued to shovel through the snow...that was becoming red and brown. 

"Lathan!" He screamed and pulled her back with a force he didn't know he could exert. 

She looked down at her borderline frostbitten fingers caked with mud and...she hoped it was her blood at the very least. "What do you want?"

"You already know," he squatted beside her and completely pulled off his goggles. She could never recall a time he did that and her heart quickened at the sight of his eyes staring directly back into hers. When was the last time she maintained eye contact? She didn't know. 

"You just gonna fucking stare at me?" She reddened and looked away. For the first time, James had managed to make her the bashful one, he'd be a liar if he said that didn't make his heart soar with a new conflicting feeling. 

"Until you tell me what you lost," he half-smirked because he wasn't in the state of mind for a genuine one. 

He hadn't expected to stare at her for what he felt had to be six minutes at the least until her lips finally parted and she whispered something under the wind. 

"What?"

"It's a fucking necklace! Alright?" She looked ashamed and she completely turned her body away from him. 

"How did you lose it?"

"It-it...," she started to get choked up and James rubbed his hands down her back. "It broke, I think. I never take it off."

James sprung to his feet with a nod, pulled her up and dragged her into the shelter. The heater they had connected to the generator blasted his face and almost made him pass out right there. She quietly watched as he checked her hands, then he moved about the shelter gathering up blankets and wrapping her in them. 

He grabbed a bigger coat, his goggles, his mask, the keys, and turned to give her one more look before he left. 

She stayed behind in the shelter, fighting off a cold that kept trying to overtake her, watching the clock until minutes became hours, and the sun was past its descent and she could see the stars through the cloudy, dusty windows. 

When she saw James again the sun had returned and the wind was finally calm. She hobbled out of the covers and watched him stumble inside. "Here." He said and handed her her necklace. Almost. It had a different chain but the same pendant—the universe concentrated into a tiny glass orb. The chain, instead of the thin gold one from before was a slightly thicker silver one. 

"It's surprisingly hard to break into old, decrepit jewelry stores," he laughed dryly. 

That time it was her turn to drag him to her pile of covers and wrap him up. She cooked up a pot of questionable chicken noodle soup and they ate across from each other in silence. She watched as he noisily slurped the soup up and wipe his chin dramatically after flashing her a smile. 

She touched the necklace at her chest and her body suddenly felt alight with a new feeling. James unraveled himself from the blankets and crawled towards her. She was confused but excited as he grew near, she closed her eyes in anticipation. She felt the massive blankets be piled onto her and she opened her eyes to give him a look of confusion. He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. Her heart hammered against her chest, her skin was ablaze with... _with._ She couldn't say it even in her head. 

He leaned forward towards her, his chapped lips at her neck, just below her ear. 

"You're welcome," he whispered. 

She hadn't shivered that hard since she first left Ethea.


	5. 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine this city to look like Pripyat/Prypiat. A ghost town in Ukraine.

The Peripheries were cold. Of course, anyone who lived within 800 miles of the Peripheries could tell you that but that didn't stop her from complaining about it. Luckily it wasn't snowing. They were in a field, the remains of a small nuclear power plant a few miles from them. They were in a small, albeit technologically advanced town.

She leaned against the tire of their truck, watching the meat of a random animal sizzle over a makeshift pan. The warmth of the fire made her close her eyes.

"This, Lathan!" James exclaimed. "This will be it! I can feel it."

James was in inventor mode, he was always chipper and a bit narrowminded in inventor mode. She thumbed her necklace as she watched him toy with the dead grass. His eyes were fixed on the cloth-covered trailer behind her.

"The clock needs batteries," she said as she looked down at her wristwatch, it was over a quarter past 9. She liked to watch the time from the large, wooden analog she found. The had studied the pattern of the wood about a thousand times. She could recreate the clock from memory.

"You do love that clock, huh?" He said.

"Nothing like watching those precious hours tick away," she quipped. "What are you hoping to find anyways?"

He looked back out at the plant. "A long shot but if the factory's nuclear reactor is in working condition I think I can get the town's power up and running."

"Isn't everything frozen over?"

"As long as the ice preserves the tools I think It'll be fine."

"Why do you need nuclear power?"

"I need a lot of electricity, and Ethea can't produce that type of voltage, they work off wind turbines."

She nodded. "If anyone can bring the sun back it's you."

Peach turned away bashfully. "Don't flatter me."

"The two of us handling a power plant though?"

His face faltered. "It's the only choice we've got."

She sighed and looked out towards the factory. He stood up and sat next to her. He didn't hold her shoulders like he usually did.


	6. 6

"You're fucking kidding me," she groaned as the car sputtered to a complete halt. "What did you do?"

James looked up at her in surprise. "Me!? I did nothing."

"You were fucking with the radio knobs!"

"That won't break a car."

"Fuck you!" She screamed and slammed her fist down on the steering wheel. James leaped at the honk of the horn. 

"Let me see," he undid his seat belt and opened the door.

"Wait," she did the same and popped the trunk. She ran up beside him. "Don't touch anything!"

"It's not going to get better if I just leave it," he challenged. 

"I'll shoot you in the foot and leave you here," she threatened, her hand lingering near her beloved gun. 

"You'll be here right along with me," he said calmly. 

"Ugh!" She groaned and backed away from him. She looked over his shoulder at his diligent hands checking the car. 

"It just needs oil."

She sighed in relief. "Guess the light on the dashboard is broken." She went to the trunk and procured a container of black oil. 

They were back in the car, she could feel his glance on her. 

"See? Isn't that better?"

"Get out of my fucking car."


	7. 7

He parked the car outside the plant into an old parking lot that was more dirt and weeds than concrete at that point. He paused to breathe, his knuckles white around the steering wheel. He inhaled deeply. The crisp, cold, deadly air didn't seem to make him weary. Maybe it was the gas mask, maybe it was his resolve. She could hear the empty noise of nature and the thrumming of her heart and his breaths, quick, detached, staccato-like. Their breathing was a melody of foreboding, and the whistling of the wind tied it together in harmony. Her thoughts switched back and forth. Melancholic, foreboding, melancholic, foreboding, melancholic, foreboding, melancholic, foreboding.

"Are you sure?" He said, he looked up finally, directly at her. The gas mask made her the slightest bit braver, she didn't have to fall victim to his eyes.

"Yeah," then she looked away.

Pellets, tiny, tiny, uranium pellets. More powerful than a ton of coal. They had bucket loads. That road trip to the warmer side of the world paid off. His "friend", had given him all this processed uranium ore for the promise of a job in Ethea.

It made sense, what good was that ore doing besides giving him cancer.

Getting everything to work was easy, the facility was pitifully small. The town was pitifully small. Everything was tiny except her fear. They flowed together effortlessly, she followed every single direction he gave until the place was humming with the energy going through it. That was enough energy to power Ethea. He looked overjoyed. Part one was done. The easy part. It was keeping everything flowing effortlessly that was the problem. All it took was one meltdown.

She tried not to think about that as James went out to his car.

The Lightbringer was a device that was powered by a large battery. All they needed was to charge said battery. Easier said than done.

It would take a few days to charge the battery and then they could leave and never look back. She looked at a pressure meter.

All good.


	8. 8

The Badlands were warm.

"You're looking good."

"I went to sleep cold and woke up to this. How do you think I'm feeling?"

The Badlands were warm because it's far from the Peripheries and close to a field of geysers. The Badlands was a specific part "claimed" by Duvos, an antagonistic country bigger than Seesai. 

"It's been a long time since I've seen this much brown and green," she said with her face pressed to the glass. Staring out at the trees in the far distance past the geyser field they drove past. She could see one erupt in the distance.

"Yeah, I want the whole world to look like this," James said, she noticed his knuckles tighten around the steering wheel.

"Have you ever considered places that don't want the sun back?" She looked him in his eyes, but he kept his eyes on the road. "Barnarock? The Desert near Dubei?"

"It's...a sacrifice, but..."

"A sacrifice? James, you have no right to make this choice."

"Many people won't die, but they will have to adjust to the new climate. Not many people live in Barnarock and Dubei anyway."

"I understand, but to sacrifice these people..."

"They'd just die from something else," he snapped and finally turned towards her. "If a few have to be sacrificed for many than so be it."

She turned away. As much as she agreed with him she still felt her stomach knot.

"Clara."

"Not now James."


	9. 9

Sometime in the past, before he met her in the store all those years ago, he was just a boy. Distant from reality and disinterested in school. He didn't have his signature ambition that marked who he was today. He was a boy. A foolish, stupid boy. But that wasn't who he was today.

Today, he would be the man who brought back the sun.

He looked at the form in bed next to him breathing peacefully. He pulled back the blanket gently to see the scars littered down her back. She'd come so far just for him. She fought to the death just to help him make the world see the sun once more. He could still remember the angry, defensive young woman with the thermos full of black coffee and the shotgun strapped to her hip.

He leaned over to the bedside dresser, checking that the little box was still there. He turned to smile at the sleeping woman.

He shook Lathan awake. She groaned at him blearily and wiped her eyes to focus on his face better. "Today's the day?"

He nodded. He'd never, in all the years he'd known her, seen her get up so early. She practically bounced out of bed. "After all these years," she moved about the room in glee.

"We get to see the Lightbringer in full force," she smiled at him.

"Remember that time in Dubei?"

He smiled at her. That was the first time they tested the Lightbringer.

"People live there right? A cute little village named Portia. I hear they might make a statue of you," she smiled. "That's what you did."

"You mean we?" He cocked a brow.

"We all know I'll be erased from history," she smiled. "I don't much care."

He frowned a bit as she leaned onto the bed and kissed him.

He stood out of bed and slowly began to dress. "I can't wait to leave Ethea."

She giggled, and he felt his face flush at that. Even after all these years he still felt like a schoolboy around her. "Me too."


End file.
